Canada and the United States are expanding agreements that provide for the sharing of personnel and equipment to fight forest fires in the event of a catastrophic situation.
Federal Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson and US Ambassador David Cohen were due to sign the new memorandum of understanding in Ottawa on Thursday.
The two countries have repeatedly leaned on each other when the wildfire situation was beyond what they could handle on their own.
The new agreement replaces a number of separate agreements between the two countries, with the aim of making the sharing of firefighters, incident managers and equipment more efficient.
This new agreement is signed as Canada is going through the worst forest fire season in its history. More than 61,000 square kilometers of land have burned so far this year — roughly the size of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island combined.
The Canadian Interagency Wildfire Center says nearly 2,000 foreign firefighters are currently in Canada to lend a hand, including several hundred from the United States.
This non-profit organization brings together federal, provincial and territorial agencies that fight forest fires in Canada, such as the Société de protection des forêts contre le feu (SOPFEU) in Quebec.
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